Fire Department under fire
Remember the time during a meeting regarding the Staten Island NASCAR track whereby a high-ranking officer of the Staten Island Fire Department claimed that there are usually (on average) 6 deaths, directly and indirectly, caused by a NASCAR race? Remember how those who heard the news gasped in astonishment and how disbelieving some of the people were? Well, upon a closer look, people are beginning to doubt the accuracy of that claim. Even the FDNY is slowly finding a way to back out of the claim. In fact, a fire spokesperson said that they are not backing the information released by Thomas Haring, the man who released the information. Apparently, the information did not even make it up to the chain of command, therefore, the statement cannot be said to be an official statement from the Fire Department.
As the probe goes on, it seems that many of the high-ranking offers of fire departments across the United States say that they've not been contacted regarding the study. In fact, they feel that the statement is rather inaccurate.
Ron Avanzolini, the Special Events Coordinator of the San Bernardino Country Fire Department said that he does not know where or how the information came about. He further went on to add that they rarely had to deal with deaths during race days. “We had one heart attack and that was all this year and that was an elderly man with massive heart problems”, he said.
Out of the 11 Fire Departments contacted by Staten Island Advance , 9 of them claim that they have not been contacted by FDNY at all. That would mean that the conclusion was reached based on 2 fire department officials revealing the statistics…which is, at the end of the day, unrealistic!
ISC is not surprised with the finding at all although Michael Printup, the Island's track manager, said that they did not have their own facts and figures about the claim but he is surprised that FDNY would actually release something like that without getting their facts and figures right. “Maybe it's just a mistake when Mr. Haring (of FDNY) released it, and I guess you'll have to ask him to explain that mistake.”
That's if anyone can get in touch with Mr. Haring at this point in time and wrangle a comment out of him.